Beginning in 1935, in a series of devastating decisions, the Supreme Court's conservative majority left much of Franklin Roosevelt's agenda in ruins. The pillars of the New Deal fell in short succession. It was not just the New Deal but democracy itself that stood on trial. In February 1937, Roosevelt struck back with an audacious plan to expand the Court to fifteen justices - and to "pack" the new seats with liberals who shared his belief in a "living" Constitution.

Scorpions: The Battles and Triumphs of FDR's Great Supreme Court Justices

They began as close allies and friends of FDR, but the quest to shape a new Constitution led them to competition and sometimes outright warfare. Scorpions tells the story of four great justices: their relationship with Roosevelt, with each other, and with the turbulent world of the Great Depression, World War II, and the Cold War. It also serves as a history of the modern Constitution itself.

Being Nixon: The Fears and Hopes of an American President

What was it really like to be Richard Nixon? Evan Thomas tackles this fascinating question by peeling back the layers of a man driven by a poignant mix of optimism and fear. The result is both insightful history and an astonishingly compelling psychological portrait of an anxious introvert who struggled to be a transformative statesman.

The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society

The Fierce Urgency of Now animates the full spectrum of forces at play during these turbulent years, including religious groups, the media, conservative and liberal political action groups, unions, and civil rights activists. Above all, the great character in the audiobook whose role rivals Johnson's is Congress - indeed, Zelizer argues that our understanding of the Great Society program is too Johnson-centric.

One Man Against the World: The Tragedy of Richard Nixon

Based largely on documents declassified in only the last few years, One Man Against the World paints a devastating portrait of a tortured yet brilliant man who led the country largely according to a deep-seated insecurity and distrust of not only his cabinet and Congress but the American population at large. In riveting, tick-tock prose, Weiner illuminates how the Vietnam War and the Watergate controversy that brought about Nixon's demise were inextricably linked.

Ministers at War: Winston Churchill and His War Cabinet

In May 1940, with France on the verge of defeat, Britain alone stood in the path of the Nazi military juggernaut. Survival seemed to hinge on the leadership of Winston Churchill, whom the king reluctantly appointed prime minister as Germany invaded France. Churchill's reputation as one of the great 20th-century leaders would be forged during the coming months and years as he worked tirelessly first to rally his country and then to defeat Hitler.

Mike From Mesa says:"Welcome addition to the literature of World War II"

The Oath: The Obama White House and the Supreme Court

From the moment John Roberts, the chief justice of the United States, blundered through the Oath of Office at Barack Obama's inauguration, the relationship between the Supreme Court and the White House has been confrontational. Both men are young, brilliant, charismatic, charming, determined to change the course of the nation - and completely at odds on almost every major constitutional issue. One is radical; one essentially conservative. The surprise is that Obama is the conservative.

Liberty's Exiles: American Loyalists in the Revolutionary World

Maya Jasanoff won the National Book Critics Circle Award for her groundbreaking work Liberty's Exiles. After the American Revolution, 60,000 British loyalists fled the U.S. for Canada, the Caribbean, India, and other points abroad. Jasanoff traces their harrowing journeys across the globe, shedding light on their ambitions, the post-revolutionary world they encountered, and their legacies.

The Supreme Court: The Personalities and Rivalries That Defined America

A leading Supreme Court expert recounts the personal and philosophical rivalries that forged our nation's highest court and continue to shape our daily lives. The Supreme Court is the most mysterious branch of government, and yet the Court is at root a human institution, made up of very bright people with very strong egos, for whom political and judicial conflicts often become personal.

Roosevelt's Second Act: The Election of 1940 and the Politics of War

On August 31, 1939, nearing the end of his second and presumably final term in office, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt was working in the Oval Office and contemplating construction of his presidential library and planning retirement. The next day German tanks had crossed the Polish border; Britain and France had declared war. Overnight the world had changed, and FDR found himself being forced to consider a dramatically different set of circumstances.

The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court

Based on exclusive interviews with justices themselves, The Nine tells the story of the Supreme Court through personalities, from Anthony Kennedy's overwhelming sense of self-importance to Clarence Thomas' well-tended grievances against his critics to David Souter's odd 19th-century lifestyle. There is also, for the first time, the full behind-the-scenes story of Bush v. Gore and Sandra Day O'Connor's fateful breach with George W. Bush, the president she helped place in office.

Ratification: The People Debate the Constitution, 1787-1788

When the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia adjourned late in the summer of 1787, the delegates returned to their states to report on the new Constitution, which had to be ratified by specially elected conventions in at least nine states. Pauline Maier recounts the dramatic events of the ensuing debate in homes, taverns, and convention halls, drawing generously on the speeches and letters of founding fathers, both familiar and forgotten, on all sides.

The Great Divide: The Conflict Between Washington and Jefferson That Defined a Nation

History tends to cast the early years of America in a glow of camaraderie when there were, in fact, many conflicts between the Founding Fathers - none more important than the one between George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Their disagreement centered on the highest, most original public office created by the Constitutional Convention: the presidency. It also involved the nation's foreign policy, the role of merchants and farmers in a republic, and the durability of the union.

The Great Dissent: How Oliver Wendell Holmes Changed His Mind and Changed the History of Free Speech in America

Free speech as we know it comes less from the First Amendment than from a most unexpected source: Supreme Court justice Oliver Wendell Holmes. A lifelong skeptic, he disdained all individual rights, including the right to express one's political views. But in 1919, it was Holmes who wrote a dissenting opinion that would become the canonical affirmation of free speech in the United States.

The New Deal: A Modern History

As America struggles with an economic debacle akin to the Great Depression, nothing could be timelier than an authoritative account of the New Deal, masterfully written by Michael Hiltzik, author of the acclaimed history of the Hoover Dam, Colossus.

In this richly peopled, vividly rendered narrative, Hiltzik describes how the urgent short-term relief measures of Franklin Roosevelt’s Hundred Days evolved into a transformative concept of the federal role in American life.

Keynes Hayek: The Clash That Defined Modern Economics

As the stock market crash of 1929 plunged the world into turmoil, two men emerged with competing claims on how to restore the balance to economies gone awry. John Maynard Keynes, the mercurial Cambridge economist, believed that government had a duty to spend when others would not. He met his opposite in a little-known Austrian economics professor, Friedrich Hayek, who considered attempts to intervene both pointless and potentially dangerous.

Anandasubramanian says:"An unbiased evaluation of both the major economist"

The Last Founding Father: James Monroe and a Nation's Call to Greatness

In this lively and compelling biography, Harlow Giles Unger reveals the dominant political figure of a generation. A fierce fighter in four critical Revolutionary War battles and a courageous survivor of Valley Forge and a near-fatal wound at the Battle of Trenton, James Monroe (1751 - 1831) went on to become America's first full-time politician, dedicating his life to securing America's national and international durability.

The Defining Moment: FDR's Hundred Days and the Triumph of Hope

In this dramatic and fascinating account, Newsweek columnist Jonathan Alter shows how Franklin Delano Roosevelt used his first 100 days in office to lift the country from the despair and paralysis of the Great Depression and transform the American presidency.

Injustices: The Supreme Court's History of Comforting the Comfortable and Afflicting the Afflicted

Few American institutions have inflicted greater suffering on ordinary people than the Supreme Court of the United States. Since its inception the justices of the Supreme Court have shaped a nation where children toiled in coal mines, where Americans could be forced into camps because of their race, and where a woman could be sterilized against her will by state law.

The Fiery Trial: Abraham Lincoln and American Slavery

Eric Foner gives us the definitive history of Abraham Lincoln and the end of slavery in America. Foner's Lincoln emerges as a leader, one whose greatness lies in his capacity for moral and political growth through real engagement with allies and critics alike. This powerful work will transform our understanding of the nation's greatest president and the issue that mattered most.

The Hopkins Touch

The Hopkins Touch offers the first portrait in over two decades of the most powerful man in Roosevelt's administration. David Roll shows how Harry Hopkins, an Iowa-born social worker who had been an integral part of the New Deal's implementation, became the linchpin in FDR's - and America's - relationships with Churchill and Stalin, and spoke with an authority second only to the president's.

A Wild Justice: The Death and Resurrection of Capital Punishment in America

For two hundred years, the constitutionality of capital punishment had been axiomatic. But in 1962, Justice Arthur Goldberg and his clerk Alan Dershowitz dared to suggest otherwise, launching an underfunded band of civil rights attorneys on a quixotic crusade. In 1972, in a most unlikely victory, the Supreme Court struck down Georgia’s death penalty law in Furman v. Georgia.

American Brutus: John Wilkes Booth and the Lincoln Conspiracies

In American Brutus, popular historian Michael W. Kauffman delivers a history that reads more like a best-selling novel. This definitive masterwork dispels commonly held myths and reveals the truth about John Wilkes Booth. Luring Southern sympathizers into a “noble” presidential kidnapping, Booth stunned his puzzled pawns by murdering Lincoln. From Booth’s early life and acting career to his escape and death, this meticulously researched book re-examines it all using a wealth of primary sources.

Why Government Fails So Often: And How It Can Do Better

From healthcare to workplace conduct, the federal government is taking on ever more responsibility for managing our lives. At the same time, Americans have never been more disaffected with Washington, seeing it as an intrusive, incompetent, wasteful giant. The most alarming consequence of ineffective policies, in addition to unrealized social goals, is the growing threat to the government’s democratic legitimacy. Understanding why government fails so often - and how it might become more effective - is an urgent responsibility of citizenship.

Publisher's Summary

Beginning in 1935, in a series of devastating decisions, the Supreme Court's conservative majority left much of Franklin Roosevelt's agenda in ruins. The pillars of the New Deal fell in short succession. It was not just the New Deal but democracy itself that stood on trial. In February 1937, Roosevelt struck back with an audacious plan to expand the Court to fifteen justices - and to "pack" the new seats with liberals who shared his belief in a "living" Constitution. The ensuing fight was a firestorm that engulfed the White House, the Court, Congress, and the nation.

The final verdict was a shock. It dealt FDR the biggest setback of his political life, split the Democratic party, and set the stage for a future era of Republican dominance. Yet the battle also transformed America's political and constitutional landscape, hastening the nation's march into the modern world.

This brilliant work of history unfolds like a thriller, with vivid characters and unexpected twists. Providing new evidence and fresh insight, Jeff Shesol shows why understanding the Court fight is essential to understanding the presidency, personality, and legacy of FDR - and to understanding America at a crossroads in its history.

What the Critics Say

“Supreme Power is an extraordinary book that rings with relevance for our time.” (Bill Clinton)

"Characterizing defining traits of the main combatants—FDR, Chief Justice Charles Hughes, and Senator Burt Wheeler—Shesol skillfully illustrates the nexus of personality and principle, with the New Deal and the Constitution being perceived as at stake. A book sure to recruit history readers, especially those eyeing present political currents." (Booklist)

This book was extremely well written and well narrated- it is probably one of the best books I've listened to this year. Jeff Shesol did a great job of painting a picture of all of the key players in Roosevelt's attempt to pack the Supreme Court- from Roosevelt himself to Senators Bert Wheeler and Joe Robinson, to each of the US Supreme Court Justices that made up that court. What made this book so great was that the author did an incredible job of framing each of the key player's personal agendas and priorities as either a proponent or opponent of the court packing scheme as well as providing a brief biography of each of them. Most interesting were the discussions of Chief Justice Hughes (a former US Presidetial candidate) as well as Justices Stone and Roberts (who eventually became the key swing vote in the court). I strongly recommend the book as a great listen

"Supreme Power" is a brilliant exposition of the period when the Constitution emerged from the straightjacket of the 19th century property rights movement and helped to create modern constitutional approaches to the inherent powers of the Commerce Clause and the plenary power of Congress to act in the national interest, which was essential to the civil rights and environmental movements, among other important trends in contemporary America. Shesol tells an utterly compellibng story in a lively, non-pedantic manner. An absolute must for any student of American political history.

There are many similarities between our great depression and or current great recession. Understanding the former goes a long way to understanding the latter. This book brings up Roosevelts New Deal agenda, the conservative Supreme Court's opposition and the resulting battle that was waged. Of paramount significance is the realization that today's conservative movement got its start with Roosevelt's defeat to pack the Supreme Court.

The book's presentation is first rate. Mel Foster was an inspired choice to be narrator. His imitation of Roosevelt is right on the mark. A must listen!

A well-written and well-narrative audiobook that effectively brings the politics of the 1930s to life. Without really meaning to, or doing so explicitly, the number of parallels to the fractious politics of the contemporary scene are remarkable. During the early part of the book I found myself nodding knowingly as I saw things in the early- to mid-1930s that looked like the late-2000s. But as I got caught up in the drama and the characters of the Supreme Court fight, those fell aside and the story moved along without having to remind me of today. A great accomplishment. History does repeat itself, more or less, but history has its own story to tell that is not always an object lesson to what is in the newspaper today. Highly recommended.

During the "read" of "Supreme Power", I couldn't help but feel as if history was almost repeating itself.
And It's amazing how many names associated with the FDR administration are found in later Presidencies, including the present!
Truly, it's a crying shame, that knowing American history isn't a prerequisite to actually participating in Making American history.
This is an excellent story, a real "page turner", with a flawless narration that adds to feel of holding history in your very own hands.
Listen, read, feel - Whatever! - make this the one book you "do" if you're grappling with the issues over our Supreme Court and the demise of our democracy today.

I was a little surprised by how narrow and tight was the focus of this book. I guess I let myself believe this book would talk more broadly about the history of the supreme court or even more broadly about the presidency of FDR. Instead the book covered several years (~36-~38) mostly during FDR's second term. The action and insight of the book was almost entirely focused on the supreme court and FDR's court packing plan. I know this was what was blurbed for the book but I was surprised that mentions of other national and world events (depression, New Deal and WW2) were quite minimal and only mentioned in passing as they related to the court.
I would have liked more in-depth analysis of those concurrent events and a broader ranging discussion of both the court history and maybe FDR's history. For how much time I spent with this book, I feel like I have gained little, though the reading and the story itself was enjoyable enough while I was listening to it.
I also had to do some homework part way through this book. I needed to refresh myself on the order and years of the presidents just before FDR and I needed to google the 'teapot dome" scandal. I wish the author had filled that in a bit more, though now that I've read the Wikipedia entry I can't say that background would have been very interesting.

Overall, decent book. I wouldn't necessarily recommend it strongly but it isn't a total waste of a credit. I would like to find a broader history of the supreme court, though.

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